Portobello Ristorante

Portobello Ristorante is a cozy Italian restaurant run by owner and chef Joe “Pino” Milano located on West Broadway directly across from Joey Broadway. We dropped by for dinner one night with some friends and enjoyed some of the offerings from their Special 3 Course Dinner Menu.

Portobello has an interesting selection of drinks including the Pink Pussycat and Yummy Yam martinis. The Pink Pussycat is very much a girly girl drink and isn’t very strong but still tasty. The Yummy Yam, on the other hand, is stronger with a distinct lychee flavour to it.

Our server brought us a basket of puffed-up triangular bread loafs that were crusty on the outside but airy on the inside.

The 3 course menu comes with your choice of Insalata Caesar with crisp romaine lettuce with a homemade garlic dressing or the daily special soup. Today, they were serving Stracciatella- a yummy Italian egg-drop soup with chicken and herbs.

My wife picked the Cotoletta di Pollo Parmigiana made with a free run chicken breast that’s been flattened and topped with mozzarella, their own special tomato sauce and parmigiano. This was one of the best parmesan chicken dishes that I’ve had… the chicken was very tender.

I opted for the Involtini di Vitello Con Gamberi because it sounded really interesting… thin slices of veal rolled up with prawns, fresh herbs, and sauteed with white wine butter lemon sauce. I guess you could call it surf n’ turf with a twist.

For dessert, you have your option of Torta di Nocciola – a chocolate hazelnut cheesecake made with frangelico liquer or Amaretto di Saronno Crème Brûlée.

The desserts were pretty good but I’m not a big fan of liquer in my desserts but they were pretty good.

Our friend couldn’t decide what she wanted for dessert so she waited to order after our main courses were finished. When our waiter came to take her order, the cheesecake wasn’t available any more so he offered her the choice of any of their desserts and she decided for a Trio of Sorbetto including raspberry, mango, and lemon. I think she got the better deal because the sorbetto was very tasty.

Afterwards, our server brought by these homemade orange, hazelnut and olive oil cookies with our bill – I thought that was a nice touch.

While the water service was only refilled 3 times within 2 hours, I think our server was friendly enough and attentive without being obtrusive and the owner did stop by our table to check in with us which I think shows how much they care about their service.